HUMAN REMAINS RECOVERED IN NORTH KOREA

[DOD]

NEWS RELEASE

No. 416-97
(703)697-5131(media)
_IMMEDIATE RELEASE_ August 4, 1997 (703)697-5737(public/industry)

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HUMAN REMAINS RECOVERED IN NORTH KOREA

Four sets of skeletal remains believed to be those of American
soldiers lost during the Korean War have been recovered in Unsan
County, North Korea. The remains were excavated during a 20-day field
operation by a joint U.S.-North Korean team which had been conducting
joint excavations in the northwestern part of North Korea, about 50
miles southwest of the Yalu River.

The U.S. team from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory,
Hawaii and the Department of Defense had been conducting excavations
in an area where several hundred Americans are known to have been lost
in fierce combat between U.S. and Chinese forces.

The human remains were returned to American control in a repatriation
ceremony on Monday, Aug. 4, at Panmunjom. They will be taken to the
CILHI where forensic processes will seek to establish the
identifications of the Americans.

This is the second time U.S. specialists from the Defense Department's
POW/Missing Personnel Office and CILHI have entered North Korea. In
July 1996, a similar joint team located the remains of an American
soldier, also in Unsan County. Those remains were subsequently
identified and returned to his family for burial with full military
honors.

In an agreement signed by the United States and North Korea in June,
both sides agreed that further joint recovery operations will be
conducted in September and October. North Korea also agreed to allow a
U.S. archival team to review American-related records in Pyongyang's
military museum. That team arrived in North Korea on Aug. 2.

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